The prospect of the Royal Norwegian Navy upgrading its five ‘Fridtjof Nansen’ class frigates with a new configuration of Lockheed Martin’s Aegis Combat Management System (CMS) is casing controversy inRussia.

Moscow has reacted angrily to the possible upgrade of the Aegis system installed on these ships to perform ballistic missile interception. This would effectively outfit the ships with the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defence (Aegis BMD) incarnation of the CMS.

Upgrading these ships could cost around $12 million (€9 million) per vessel, and would also require the modification of the ships’ Mk.41 Vertical Launch System to accommodate Raytheon RIM-161 Standard Missile-3 surface-to-air weapons.